The structure of a liquid is always less ordered than that of the crystalline solid and, therefore, the liquid commonly occupies a larger volume. The behaviour of ice, which floats on water, and of a few other substances are notable exceptions to the usual decrease in density upon melting.

Melting of a given mass of a solid requires the addition of a characteristic amount of heat, the heat of fusion. In the reverse process, the freezing of the liquid to form the solid, the same quantity of heat must be removed. The heat of fusion of ice, the heat required to melt one gram, is about 80 calories; this amount of heat would raise the temperature of a gram of liquid water from the freezing point (0 °C, or 32 °F) to 80 °C (176 °F).

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one of the three basic states of matter, the others being liquid and gas. (Sometimes plasmas, or ionized gases, are considered a fourth state of matter.) A solid forms from liquid or gas because the energy of atoms decreases when the atoms take up a relatively ordered, three-dimensional structure.

energy that is transferred from one body to another as the result of a difference in temperature. If two bodies at different temperatures are brought together, energy is transferred—i.e., heat flows—from the hotter body to the colder. The effect of this transfer of energy usually, but...